In the end, she hadn't actually thrown up, and it was with considerable relief that she eased herself back onto her heels, lifting her eyes from their intense survey of the blue-tinted water. She hated throwing up. Each time SG-1 came back from a mission with food poisoning, Sam was always the one who was worst hit, no matter how hard she tried to avoid it. She would be the one stuck in the infirmary for the extra couple of days, the one with the paralyzing cramps and sky-high temperature.
This was new though. She'd never thrown up because a mission had made her feel so dirty, so disgusting that her stomach revolted.
Her palms pressed heavily onto her thighs, her body weighed heavy with fatigue.
It had been a close call today. Close enough for Sam to feel that her uncharacteristic desperate dash through the corridors of level 28 to the nearest toilet had been a necessary evil. No doubt had she ignored her body's ominous warning - that slick, foul feeling pressing upwards - she would have humiliated herself in the briefing room. After all the effort she'd put in seeming cool and professional after the near argument she'd had with her CO on the X303, it would have been a shame to show up her unsteady emotions.
Wearily, Sam rested her flushed cheek against the chilled cubicle wall and tried to motivate herself into getting a move on. She needed to go home where paperwork awaited her - two separate but related reports from two equally awful accidental missions.
Adrian Conrad.
Almost without thinking, Sam's body lurched towards the bowl as an upsurge of bile threatened to expel everything in her stomach. She poised herself over the bowl, eyes tightly closed, mind willing her body not to give in even as cold sweat crawled over her forehead and under her clothes.
Now this reaction... this was normal and precisely the reason Sam never dwelled on Adrian Conrad. After the initial furor from her kidnapping had died down, Sam had put all her willpower into not thinking about what had almost happened. On her own damn planet. About the man who had seen no problem in dissecting another human being to save himself.
And as for Colonel Simmons... words could not describe. Her loathing for that man went beyond hate, went beyond anything she had ever felt for anyone before. Thinking of him, her hands clenched up with the impossibility of the man, the stupidity, the stubbornness, the *wrongness* of him. How anyone could think the way he did, selfishly, how anyone couldn't see the good in the SGC, was beyond her.
Easing back down again, Sam concentrated on her breathing once more. The simplicity of it, the repetitive, natural motion. The sound the air made rushing into her lungs.
Beyond her breathing, beyond the gurgle of the water pipes around her, she heard the locker room door open, heard squeaks on the tile, heard the sound of a locker opening and slamming closed again.
Stupid though it may have sounded, but Sam recognized that slam. It was an Edora slam, a Tok'ra slam, an I-fucked-up-royally slam. His slam.
Breathing, nausea and hatred temporarily shoved aside, Sam listened intently, waiting for him to leave. She couldn't cope with him now, didn't want to hear the litany he'd spouted throughout the briefing. It was the right thing to do.
It wasn't.
It wasn't.
It wasn't and she believed that with all her heart.
An almost-silence followed the sharp slamming of metal upon metal. Occasionally, a scuffed foot - the squeak of plastic on floor tile - and metallic zipping indicated that the newest occupant of the locker room was changing into his civvies.
Hammond had given them two days downtime - less than he usually gave them when they saved the universe but he'd correctly interpreted the tensions in the briefing room to mean that SG-1 needed to get back on track. Fast. Sam hadn't missed the surprised looks the General had given her each time she responded in a brusque way to whatever question had been directly asked of her. Nor had she missed the way the Colonel had avoided her eyes when she'd tried to connect with him over the briefing table.
The locker room door opened once more. Was he leaving? she wondered, hopefully.
"Jonas," he said, noncommittally.
She felt her mouth flicker. Jonas. It shouldn't have surprised her that he would be the one to voice her own opinion, but it had. She and Jonas had more in common than she would have ever thought. She supposed this was a bit of a let down for him, too. The first time he'd seen SG-1 do something that wasn't exceptional, wasn't 'right'.
"Colonel." A pause. "Going home?"
Why, Jonas, she thought proudly, that was almost cold.
"Eventually."
"Have you seen Sam?"
"I haven't seen Major Carter since she high tailed it out of the briefing room."
Oh, so he had noticed. Great. And she was 'Major Carter'. That was always a bad sign. There were usually two ways the Colonel used her title - in that proud, warm tone and in the irritated, brusque way he had just used.
"She told me she was going home right away but her car's still in the parking lot and she hasn't signed out."
"Check her lab. If she's not there, try the Doc's. Then again, she might be in her office doing her paperwork already."
Sam rolled her eyes. She'd told Jonas she'd be going home right away so she could get some peace. She didn't want to see anyone, talk to anyone, be with anyone at the moment.
"Right..... Thanks, Colonel."
"See you in a couple of days, Jonas."
"Sure."
Jonas left and in the quiet that followed, she heard her CO curse softly. The noise of the lock catching lifted her heart - he would be gone soon, leaving her to mutinous thoughts.
Sneakers squeaked across tile, made her smile triumphantly. Yes, he was leaving. That smile faltered, however, when she realized the sound was coming towards her. Dammit. He would see the cubicle door was closed. He would know someone was in here. And if she knew him at all, he'd ask who it was.
A faucet was turned on, water splashing crisply against ceramic. She imagined him leaning over the sink, cupping his hands under the icy water and splashing it on his face as she'd seen him do time and time again.
The squeaky faucet was turned back off, the water slowing to a dribble, then a drip. The rough scratching of paper being pulled from the dispenser and balled up followed as he wiped his hands.
"It was the right thing to do," he repeated in a murmur.
She waited. Was he talking to himself? Or, somehow, did he know instinctively that she was there? Why would he lie to Jonas, if that was true?
"See you in a couple of days, Carter."
She closed her eyes.
Shit.
He didn't move away, waiting, as he was, for her response.
Did she have a response? What could she possibly say to him?
"Wait," she managed.
Whatever it was she had to say to him, and she knew she had to say something; they couldn't just leave it like this, she wouldn't do it through a door.
Clambering noisily to her feet, she flushed the toilet and unlocked the door. Not looking at him or his reflection in the mirror, she went straight to the line of sinks and washed her mouth out with a blast of water.
When she looked up, all she could see in the reflection of her eyes was guilt. She had promised him.
"I promised him and we left him behind," Sam said quietly.
He flinched and turned away from her, looking into the locker room. "You know it was the..."
"There is nothing 'right' about leaving a man behind. Christ, you of all people..." She leaned her hands on the sink and tried to see past the fury. "He trusted me."
"I know. I know you feel guilty and I'm sorry... Carter, if following my orders made you feel that way," he said bitterly. "If there had been another way that I could see I would have done it. But there wasn't. You know that."
Coming from him, that was the longest explanation of his actions she'd ever heard. And she knew he didn't need to justify himself. That was, after all, the point of the chain of command.
He turned back to her, nervous hands tucked securely into his pockets, worry evident on his face. She pushed herself off the sink and watched him shamelessly. The Colonel just stood there, not looking away from her, letting her look to her heart's content. In studying him, Sam realized that if she put aside her professional feelings, those personal feelings that they never mentioned were still perfectly intact.
And there was no way she could voice her feelings.
"Walk me up to the surface?" she said, instead.
A softening in his eyes told her the message had got through. "Sure."
END
Story Notes: Email: randomleaves@yahoo.co.uk
Status: Complete
Spoilers: Unnatural Selection
Season: 6
Archive: SJD please.
Author's Note: Beta-ed by... people. Shut up. I wrote this such a long time ago.
Status: Complete
Spoilers: Unnatural Selection
Season: 6
Archive: SJD please.
Author's Note: Beta-ed by... people. Shut up. I wrote this such a long time ago.
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters, settings, etc, are the property of their respective owners. Any original characters and plots are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. ... [ read more ]